In the art of waterslide design, it is known to include a bowl as one element of a waterslide apparatus. Such bowls are typically configured so that the rider enters the bowl through a flume on a tangential trajectory and slides around the bowl in a generally spiral path before exiting through an opening at the bottom of the bowl. Examples of such waterslide bowls are disclosed in Stuart et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,485,372 and GB 2,224,948.
In conventional waterslide bowls, riders do not follow a fixed path in the bowl because there is no guiding structure on the rider surface of the bowl. The causes inconsistent performance: a rider may go around the bowl once, twice or more times. Since the rider capacity of a waterslide is limited by the maximum length of time it takes a rider to traverse the waterslide, variability in the length of time that riders spend traversing the bowl reduces the capacity of the waterslide. A fixed path in the bowl would make the rider's experience of the ride, and the duration of the ride, more uniform.
One possible approach to this problem is to mold a continuous trough in the bottom of the bowl to guide the rider from the bowl entrance to its exit in a fixed, approximately spiral path. However, since waterslide bowls are conventionally made by attaching together molded pie-shaped segments, a large number of individually-shaped segments would be required to create such trough by such molding method.
Another possible approach is to have elements in the bowl that form a partial trough which captures the riders and guides them to the exit. However, that may introduce a hazard in the form of a fin or edge that divides adjacent parts of the trough.